


Of Adam and Eve

by Sermna



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Universe - No Sburb Session, Gen, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-31
Updated: 2013-08-31
Packaged: 2017-12-25 04:30:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/948642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sermna/pseuds/Sermna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Ah, Vriska, if you would care to take a, moment, out of your kicking, I would like to uh, remind you that we need to leave, perhaps, right now?” </p><p>She looks up, sees the policemen running up the slope to the large seaside house. Sirens blare.</p><p>“Oh. Right. Get your fat ass moving, Nitram!”</p><p>Tavros scoops the thrashing figure into a fireman’s hold, grimacing as it tried to bite at his flesh. Beside him Vriska plucks a gun out of her pocket, neat and tidy and decorated with Spiderman stickers, and she fires several shots in the police’s general direction. They start to yell.</p><p>“Worth it!” She yells, and leads the way back down to the craggy seaside cliffs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

Dimly, you became aware of yourself as a single hole bored through the plane of black, red pouring through it in molten waves and overtaking you in agony. Once, when you were small, you had witnessed a traffic accident and the resulting crash had deafened and disoriented you, and your mother had placed a hand on your face and asked _Are you okay, Rosie, are you okay?_ You were not okay, you’re not okay, mom, cymbals are crashing into you and somewhere a dog whines because his master is gone-

The red brightens to white and your world narrows to one fact: your leg is on fire. You are dying.  
You scream.

___

“Holy fuck, Kanaya, of all the shit that couldn’t have landed our way-”

“I understand your distress, Karkat, but I feel compelled to point out that, oddly enough, my attention is needed elsewhere and your screeching is not helping-”

The red hole goes wider and wider and eventually you see things through it. Shadows play like birds and you try to sing to them but all you can hear is that dog, whimpering and whimpering-  
A cold hand touches your face, softly, and with it comes a voice, “Be quiet, I know, I know it hurts, I know...”

The dog is you. Your eyesight swims and the hole covers your face. You see a woman, leaned over you, _Rosie answer me babe_ , and she hisses when you open your eyes.

“It is as you thought, dear,” she calls over her shoulder, and another bird sings down as two cool fingers holds your eye open.

“Well fuck I'm right,” says the bird, and you begin to think that it is not a bird, because birds do not have fists or huge, black eyes. You cough blood in his face.

“Jesus,” says the not-bird, and he withdraws. The woman takes his place and sticks one brown wrist to your face, whispers words to you, but she does not need to tell you what to do.

You are Rose Lalonde, and for the very first time in your afterlife you break skin and drink as if nothing else ever mattered.

“Shit,” someone says again, and you think you agree.

___

Kanaya settles herself on a broken armchair and picks at the wounds on her wrist, two ragged lines encrusted by dried, stolen blood. An experimental lick reveals that the red is as dead as she is. For the girl, however, it brought life- or rather, an existence. Her heart will beat in pure defiance to nature from this point forward.

“Kanaya,” Karkat says. His voice is rough, and when she looks to him he is grimacing. It is his default expression, as if he were tired of everything is existence. Kanaya thinks that he probably is.

“Is she settled down?”

He shakes his head and runs a dirty hand through his thick hair. “She’s pulling the demon act.”

He settles himself on the floor by her feet, where moonlight pools in acidic squares from a high-set window. He pays them no mind. His eyes keep almost exclusively to the front door, where five thick beams are boarded in final lines, and he watches.

“You were the same, you know,” she tells him. “When I made you I sat with you for four whole days while you screamed and writhed and died. When you opened your eyes again, they were black as they are now. You growled at me. You actually bit me, once.”

“You probably deserved it. Vampires are fucking weird, Kanaya.”

“Would you have rather I left you to die?”

Karkat turns his glare to her, and meets only her cool, filmed eyes.

“I committed suicide, dumbass. Of course I would rather have died.”

“Well, as it has been said, ‘too bad.’”  
___

Hours pass the same way autumn leaves once passed your bedroom window. It is cold and your mother is downstairs, vacuuming because she knows you hate it. You are wearing your favorite shirt, which has been overwashed and now hangs on your frame like a new face. Sometimes the wind howls and begs you to look at it, to see the snow and debris it carries, but you ignore it.

Even as you sit there the room grows colder and colder, but nothing will help. In your lap is a notebook and you are writing words, but they come out like snakes and bite, bite, bite-  
You shudder a breath and remember the burn in your leg and scream.

Hands hold you down, and someone is telling you to stop, to listen, but fury courses through you alongside pain so you bite and thrash and screech words that clump out of your mouth like blood.

A sharp metal pain sticks your arm and you settle down into tentacled darkness.


	2. Descend

You sit on a stone wall, not far from the thin rustling of a mouse dancing to its routine of day-night-day-night. You listen with interest, as you knew the steps, only differently, as you watch at night and sleep during the acidic day. How strange is must be, you think to once again watch the sun. From behind you, thick gusts of sea-stained air sweep past from cerulean waves, putting salt in your hair and spray on your arms.

_Hello, Rose._

Hello, Ocean.

It is well past midnight and you watch with only one purpose. Across a gravel lined road, a row of houses sit in wooden silence, old and broken and swollen with the sea-breeze. You watch one in particular. On the front, a curtained yellow square indicate inhabitants, and inside the square you can see the flickering movement of your targets.

So you sit and watch.

Overhead, the moon is absent, and its many children twinkle indignantly. It is your job to watch, the job that your master assigned you. Where Karkat protects, you see. Sometimes Kanaya calls you her seer, and then smiles blandly at you as if you had told her an unfunny joke. You do not understand, and make no attempt to because it is not your place.

Suddenly, the front door opens, and you sit up in anticipation. A black figure deliberates in the nervous yellow streak, and then disappears as if it has seen what it had meant to see. It takes the rectangle with it, and the door thuds closed.

_Never mind_ , you think. Your target knows you are here, so your job is done for the night. You jump lightly from the wall and pull a thick red piece of chalk from your pocket. With it secured in your left hand, You cross the road and sidle against the house. Right below the window, where you know they will be able to see, you mark two dangerous, crossed lines. It grates pleasantly. You slip the chalk back in your pocket and dip into the road, leaving the red-marked house behind you.

You have a report to make.  
___

There is a boy in a small living room, where broken chicken bones litter the floor like mock Halloween decorations. They crack under his heavy feet, crunch, and bring amusement to the face of his master.

“Tavros!” She snaps. Blue rings her mouth and shapes her words.

He stops crunching the bones, and his master settles again. She is sprawled on the couch, where red splatters are all that remain of the house’s original inhabitants. He and his master had needed a place to stay, and something to eat. However, the boy had not been allowed to help clear it out, and his stomach sits empty and watchful.

“Get me another sucker,” his master says. The wrappers for seven others rest on her red-stained shirt, little blue and red flags. Her eyes glint black.  
He brings her the sucker.

“So,” she says, crunching the raspberry-blue. “Is that twitchy freak still out there?”

“Do you mean, the blonde fledgling, that has been following us?” He asks. “I did not find her, particularly twitchy, which is to say, I thought she was quite still.”

Vriska stares at him and allows one side of her mouth to twitch into a smile. A single fang shows.

“That sure is an astute judgement, Tavros! But I didn’t ask you. I don’t care what you think. Is she out there or not?”

He crosses the room ( _crunch crunch_ ) and peer through the blinds. It is a moonless night, and the blonde fledgling is gone from her post.

“No.”

“Cool. So now we know Kanaya’s in town,” she says. She springs to her feet, as sickly smooth as a spider, and meets his eyes. One shiny black and squinted, the other smooth red, she does not look away while she brings her only flesh arm to her mouth (he can smell it- oh) and rips through the skin. Red instantly bubbles out.

“Eat!”

He does.  
__

“They’re holed up in a shack by the ocean,” you report. Kanaya nods absently, continues repairing Karkat’s ripped shirt. “As far as I can tell, it is only Vriska and her fledgling inside. They saw me. I marked the place.”

Kanaya smiles blandly. “So she is building a force as well.”

Your fingers twitch to the scars on your arms. “How is the new one?”

“Rough. He might not make it. Some of them do not.”

“Did I put up this much trouble?”

Kanaya laughs at that, sharp and tired. “Oh Rose, darling, you put up so much trouble I’m surprised you are not raving mad.” There’s a chip of something in her voice, metallic and uncertain.  
From across the house you hear a terrible scream, panicked, feral. Kanaya sighs.

“I dislike forcing Karkat to play caretaker, but he does so well at it.” She sets the mended shirt down and rubs at one inky black eye, clearly exhausted. You experience a twang of sympathy from somewhere in your chest.

“Where did you get him?” You ask, taking post beside her chair. She allows you to put a hand in her hair.

“The new one? A runaway. He did not have anything on his person but a small bag with an extra set of clothes and what looked like an iPod-”

“No, no. Karkat.”

She turns to look at you, her dirty hair sliding under your fingers. Her eyes bore into yours. “I really do not think I should tell you. If you would like to know, you have leave to ask him yourself.”

A sharp answer. It piques your curiosity.

“He knows where you found me,” you state. You’re not wheedling, and she knows, because her reply is soft.

“No he does not. I dragged you in, half-burned, and he has never asked any questions.”

The surprises you. “He thinks you’re my sire?”

A little something changes in her, brings her limbs closer together. She fixes you with her stare again. “I was your sire. You drank my blood. She only attacked you, Rose, left you to die. You owe her nothing.”  
You nod, once, and though you don’t show it you are relieved.

Vriska really had taken quite a toll on you.  
__

Vriska stares dispassionately down at the twitching corpse in front of her, and with something close to a pout she delivers a kick to his gut. Blood sputters out of his mouth.

“Useless! Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, useless!”

He moans again, the sound stretching and swelling until it reaches a full shriek, and he launches at her leg again. Tavros twitches forward, but she only makes a disgusted noise and delivers her heel neatly into the body’s jaw.

“What was I even thinking? Whiny brat. I just couldn’t resist a rich one, you know-”

“Ah, Vriska, if you would care to take a, moment, out of your kicking, I would like to uh, remind you that we need to leave, perhaps, right now?”

She looks up, sees the policemen running up the slope to the large seaside house. Sirens blare.

“Oh. Right. Get your fat ass moving, Nitram!”

Tavros scoops the thrashing figure into a fireman’s hold, grimacing as it tried to bite at his flesh. Beside him Vriska plucks a gun out of her pocket, neat and tidy and decorated with Spiderman stickers, and she fires several shots in the police’s general direction. They start to yell.

“Worth it!” She yells, and leads the way back down to the craggy seaside cliffs.

__

The new one is lying on the bed, stretched, hands gripping the sides of the raised pallet, knuckles too large. The first thing that sticks in your memory is his hair, so blonde it’s white, just like yours. Karkat stands to one side of the room, looking tired.

“Hello,” you say politely, They both turn to look at you. Karkat doesn’t answer.

“Hey,” the boy says. It pangs at your heart a little; his voice is rough and it shakes a little even though he is very clearly expending a lot of effort to sound nonchalant. When you awoke, you were cold as ice and just as uncaring.

“And what’s your name?” You’re not really supposed to be here, but you're insanely curious about this one. You don’t know how he turned. As a rule, you found, Kanaya doesn’t tell. It affords you a little privacy in a world where you behaved like a hive mind, subservient under Kanaya.

He sits up and stares at you for a moment, eyes flooded black. He’s wearing a red shirt, dirty, stained redder in some places. “Dave.”

“Dave,” you repeat. It’s a decent name. It makes you think of guitars, the waves of an ocean stained red in the sunset, and for a brief moment, of flashing swords. “Very nice to make your acquaintance. My name is Rose.”

He doesn’t repeat your name. Instead he turns to look at Karkat, worries at a hole in his jeans.

“Why the fuck do you have black eyes? Have I been abducted by aliens?” Your mouth slips open a little bit, Karkat develops a twitch in his fingers, like maybe he wants to fit them around Dave’s throat. “Are you going to probe me?”

“Oh we had to get a fucking wise guy,” Karkat groans. You’re not sure, but you think Dave laughs at him a little, a slight shake of his shoulders.

“Are you going to probe me?” He asks you. You’re careful not to smile.

“Yes. We aliens are always wanting to know more about human rectums. Now if you’ll please flip over...?”

Karkat leaves and you share an amused look with Dave. He doesn’t look nervous anymore, though he may just be good at hiding it.

“Do you know what happened to you?”

He looks somber. “Crazy vampire shit.”

Apt enough.

Kanaya enters behind you, tailed by Karkat.

“So you’re awake,” she says softly. Your muscles prickled to attention when she entered. Dave’s go lax.

Your job is to inform. “His name is Dave,” you say over your shoulder. “Five feet five inches, one hundred and twenty pounds, blonde hair, caucasian-”

“Jesus,” Dave interrupts. “You going to tell her my blood type too?”

You sniff a little. “AB negative.”

He narrows his eyes. “There is no fucking way.”

You smile. It’s actually your blood type. Just a guess. He really does look a lot like you.

“That is quite enough,” Kanaya places a hand on you shoulder and walks past. “Dave. How are you feeling?”

His fingers twitch automatically to the bite mark on his neck. “Sore.”

The corner of her mouth curves up. “Do you think you are capable of accompanying me on a trip?”

Baby’s first meal.

“Shit, I reckon.”

“We will leave tonight. For now, rest.”

You follow her out of the room.  
___

Eridan nibbles his fingernail, musses his mousse-sticky hair, flicks his inky eyes around the room. Vriska is sizing him up.

“Not bad, I guess. Tall. Kind of scrawny.” She circles around again, narrows her eyes. “Ever been in a fight, kid?”

Tavros watches as Eridan sort of inflates himself. He has a distinct air of self-importance, and even under his subservience he does not seem averse to speaking up for himself.

“Now wait. A fight? What business would I have fightin’? I ain’t the sort that needs to do that sort a barbaric thing-”

“Shut up!” Vriska yells, and he falls immediately silent. Even Tavros, who has not spoken a word in several hours, quiets his breathing. Vriska stares Eridan down for a moment, establishes unquestioning dominance, and then rocks back on her heels. “Ah well. I didn’t pick you for a fighter. I picked you because you have money, and that’s exactly what we need, ponyboy.”

He eyes her warily. Tavros notices with some amusement he smells a little like fish. “Are you usin’ me for ransom?”

Vriska laughs at that, a little too hard, a little too long.

“Ransom! Fuck no. We ain’t got time for that shit.”

“Then what?”

She exhales, as if he is unbelievably stupid. “We’re going to bust in, kill everyone, and make your pretty house our new headquarters. It’s big, and well outside of town. I always wanted to live in a big house. Do you have a pool? Yeah? Fuck that. Never liked water much. Oh! Also, we need to eat.” She winks. “How do you think daddy will taste?”

Eridan moves his mouth, makes a funny noise that sounds oddly like glub.

“What about, the police?” Tavros asks.

“Easy,” she says, drags the word out. “We’ve taken out police before.”

Tavros doesn’t remind her that that was when she lost her arm and eye, destroyed by her own shoddy explosives that that one cackling cop had used against her. Vriska hasn’t used homemade explosives since.  
“Cool,” she says easily. “We’ll go tonight. For now, clean this shit up!”

Eridan had puked blood all over the floor.


End file.
